Conferences

On April 16-17, 2014 the Sushant School of Design, Gurgaon presented its third seminar on the series based on Design Education in India. Interior Trends were the Media Partners as indeed they have been for all past conferences. In 2012 SSD, in association with the British Council, the Royal Society of Arts and the University of the Arts London launched the first conference, Design Education in India. This was a tremendous success and partly responsible for last year’s signing of an MoU between the Design Councils of India and UK – A very important step for the design industry both here and in England and for Design Thinkers all over the world. SSD is developing a close relationship with both the Indian and UK Design Councils, the centres of design activity in both countries and collectively. In 2013, the conference was themed on ‘Revolution by Design’ as that in 2014.

Eminent Design Guru, Sir Christopher Frayling, former Rector of the Royal College of Art, made a very strong and appealing case for the importance of making as well as of design in our future development of the design world. He saw India as one of the few nations left that could successfully move forward on the intergration of the technical and the crafted. This was a strong part of 2014’s conference and leading designers and architects such as Shalini Misra, famed for her sumptuous interiors which still have a strong craft made element, and Suresh Sethi, Director and chief designer of Whirlpool Asia, who has formed all from hand crafted to ultra high tech, truly embody. SSD stressed that India has as a vast number of great makers and thinkers and therefore the place for Design thinkers and makers from the world over.

Suresh Sethi has taken on the role of Chief Advisor to the newly launched Product Design department at SSD. There was further a lively debate on the future of fashion in India with Jaya Jaitely, Rina Dhaka, Urvashi Kaur, Anupama Dayal, and Gaurav Jai Gupta. This resulted in a commitment from all to make the opportunity for the children of craftsmans&folk artists to study design at an undergraduate and postgraduate level as one of the measures to bring within the framework of contemporary Design education the crucial indigenous and folk design practices of India. The two-day conference also featured academic presentations as well as pro-active workshops.

In March 2013 Sushant School of Art and Architecture, in collaboration with Sushant School of Designorganised an International Conference: Revolution by Design. The conference was the first annual conference focused on The Third Industrial Revolution (TIR) with a role that design thinking and design pedagogy will play in bringing on the changes. TIR was emphasized by American economist Jeremy Rifkin. The premise, that we can no longer sustain our growth on the use of fossil fuels and the urgent need to speed up the development of alternatives, demands design led solutions.

Eminent speakers such as Sir Christopher Frayling, ex-Rector of the Royal College of Art London; S.K.Das, Principal Architect S.K.Das Associates; Karen Richmond, head of the BA 3D program at Camberwell College of Art and Design, the University of the Arts, Ar. AshishGanju, Ms. SunitaKohli, Prof RoshniUdyavar, Prof. ManojMathur, Prof. Iftikhar-mulkChisti, Dr. Rupinder Singh and Mike Knowles presented and discussed the potential of designed based solutions.

The conference was attended by more than 80 delegates, and it was further steered by parallel workshops/seminars on traditional and modern making skills for students’ enrichment.